Sofieinkpen's Favorite Links from Diigo

Freedom in the 50 States 2013

Fri Mar 29 13:45:22 +0000 2013

The overall freedom ranking is a combination of personal and economic freedoms.

Tags: freedom states United States

The Waste List

Fri Mar 29 13:32:08 +0000 2013

Total Value of Government Waste: $42,642,699,097 as of 3/29/13

Tags: government spending government waste

Gun Owners of America

Thu Jan 17 14:38:40 +0000 2013

Tags: politics Second Amendment guns activist

NRA

Thu Jan 17 14:37:29 +0000 2013

National Rifle Association

Tags: politics Second Amendment guns activist

KeyWiki

Fri Dec 14 14:49:47 +0000 2012

KeyWiki is a bipartisan knowledge base focusing primarily on corruption and the covert side of politics in the United States and globally. While particular interest is taken in the left, KeyWiki serves to expose covert politics on both the left and the right of the political spectrum.

Tags: politics corruption

The Center for Union Facts

Wed Dec 12 21:14:57 +0000 2012

Union officials have abused the trust of their members. They've misspent member dues and harmed the very same people they promise to protect. In 2005 alone, federal racketeering investigations resulted in 196 convictions against union officials and employees and $187 million in fines. Union tactics — including deception and intimidation during organizing campaigns, strikes that hurt members more than they help, spending mandatory union dues on radical political agendas, and the use of anti-democratic voting practices — are long overdue for exposure. The Center for Union Facts has gathered a wealth of information about the size, scope, political activities, and criminal activity of the labor movement in the United States of America. Welcome to UnionFacts.com.

Tags: freedom right to work liberty unions

The National Right To Work Committee

Wed Dec 12 17:49:32 +0000 2012

No one should be forced to pay tribute to a union in order to get or keep a job.

Tags: freedom right to work liberty unions

Liberty Classroom

Fri Nov 30 14:27:12 +0000 2012

The history and economics they didn't teach you.

Tags: liberty freedom education history economics

State Documents on Federal Relations/148

Thu Nov 29 17:37:48 +0000 2012

Wisconsin Defies the Federal Courts.

Annotations:

On the eve of the Civil War, the State of Wisconsin, through her courts, her legislature and the action of her citizens, attempted to practically nullify the Fugitive Slave Law and obstruct the enforcement of the judgments of the Federal Courts.
Such assumption of power and authority by the Supreme Court of the United States, to become the final arbiter of the liberty of the citizen, and to override and nullify the judgments of the state courts' declaration thereof, is in a direct conflict with that provision of the Constitution of the United States which secures to the people the benefits of the writ of habeas corpus
we regard the action of the Supreme Court of the United States, in assuming jurisdiction in the case before mentioned, as an arbitrary act of power, unauthorized by the Constitution, and virtually superseding the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus and prostrating the rights and liberties of the people at the foot of unlimited power.
That this assumption of jurisdiction by the federal judiciary, in the said case, and without process, is an act of undelegated power, and therefore without authority, void, and of no force.
That the government, formed by the Constitution of the United States was not the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; but that, as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.

Tags: government Constitution nullification limited government

A Review of the Proclamation of President Jackson/XII

Thu Nov 29 17:34:29 +0000 2012

Tazewell argues that the Supreme Court of the United States cannot, for a variety of reasons, act as an arbiter between the federal government and the states.

Annotations:

This objection is, that no State may rightfully assume as a fact, that the Covenant has been broken by any of its co-States, or act upon such an assumption, without violating its own faith: because the covenant itself has provided an arbiter to decide all such questions, by whose decisions the faith of all the parties must be bound. This arbiter is said to be the Supreme Court of the United States. To this objection, which is founded upon the supposed existence of a common arbiter, authorized and capable to decide all infractions of the Constitution, of which any State may have cause to complain, many answers may be given, all equally conclusive to shew, that no such arbiter, clothed with such authority, either does, or ought to be expected to exist.
The first of these answers is, that according to no legal possibility, could the case supposed to exist, ever be presented to the Supreme Court for its decision, even if the sovereign parties were content to abide by that decision. — The Judges of the Supreme Court, like all other Judges, are appointed to decide "cases," and not to amuse themselves or to edify mankind (as the President seeks to do in this Proclamation), with obiter dicta, or with public Lectures, communicating the results of their lucubrations upon mere questions of law, of politics, or of any other art or Science.
But here it may be said, perhaps, as is often said, that the government of the United States can only act by Individuals, and upon Individuals; and as the courts are always open to such parties, all questions of constitutional right may so readily be brought before the Supreme Court. To this commonplace assertion, I oppose a flat denial. The evil complained of, may not be the consequence of any act whatever, but of a wilful omission to act, on the part of the government. In such a case, it cannot be pretended, that there is any individual, to whom the aggrieved sufferer may resort for redress, by a suit in court — or the evil complained of, may be an act, which, although palpably wrong, may not require the agency of any individual; or although wantonly oppressive and cruelly unjust upon all the inhabitants of a State, may nevertheless, like every common nuisance, be injurious to no one of them in particular, and therefore would be an act not to be redressed in any private suit. Suppose for example, Congress should pass a law giving a preference to the ports of one State over those of another, which they are expressly forbidden to do in the very terms of the Constitution itself; what Individual could sue, or what Individual might he implead, for the perpetration of an act so ruinous to the injured State?
I have great respect for the Judiciary of every country, but no lawyer or historian can tell, in what age or in what country, the Judiciary have ever been able, even where it was willing, to protect the rights of the people against the usurpations of Government.

Tags: government Constitution nullification limited government

The Examiner, and Journal of Political Economy/Volume 2/Number 8/An Exposition of the Virginia Resolutions of 1798

Thu Nov 29 17:30:15 +0000 2012

The fifth of six essays written by Abel P. Upshur under this title and published in this work.

Annotations:

The only principle involved in Nullification, is the right of a State to decide whether an act of Congress is a breach of the compact or not; and if it shall decide that it is a breach, to interpose without waiting for the co-operation of other States, for "arresting the progress of the evil," in such mode as not to break the Union, nor interrupt the regular progress of the Government within the Constitution. No one, I think, can deny the correctness of this principle. Nullification professes to conform to it, whilst Secession obviously disclaims it; because Secession necessarily breaks the Union.
Nullification and Secession are both rights; and the difference between them is simply this: Nullification proposes to preserve the Constitution, by annulling every act of the Federal Government, which the Constitution does not authorize; it proposes to preserve the Union, by annulling those usurpations in some mode which shall not withdraw the State from the Union, nor embarrass the regular action of the Government within the Constitution. Secession withdraws the State out of the reach of the usurped powers, when all other means of redress have failed. Nullification, therefore, is the primary right and the primary duty of the State; Secession is the ultimate right, when Nullification has failed.
If the Federal Government may enforce one unconstitutional law, it may enforce every unconstitutional law, and thus all the rights of the States and the people may fall one by one, before the omnipotence of that Government. This consequence is too manifest to escape even the most superficial observation. The worst possible result of nullification, even in the opinion of its bitterest opponents, is to dissolve the Union — and this result does not legitimately flow from it; while the alternative which they propose, establishes an absolute despotism, which not only dissolves the Union, but establishes the worst possible form of government upon its ruins. Thus it appears that nullification is much less apt to be abused, than the alternate remedy, and when abused, its consequences are infinitely less to be deprecated.

Tags: government Constitution nullification limited government

The Examiner, and Journal of Political Economy/Volume 2/Number 7/An Exposition of the Virginia Resolutions of 1798

Tue Nov 27 23:46:22 +0000 2012

The fourth of six essays written by Abel P. Upshur under this title and published in this work.

Annotations:

"The States, then, being the parties to the Constitutional Compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows, of necessity, that there can be no tribunal above their authority, to decide, in the last resort, whether the Compact made by them be violated: and, consequently, that as the parties to it, they must decide, in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition. From this view of the Resolution, it would seem inconceivable that it can incur any just disapprobation from those who, laying aside all momentary impressions, and recollecting the genuine source and object of the Federal Constitution, shall candidly and accurately interpret the meaning of the General Assembly. If the deliberate exercise of dangerous powers, palpably withheld by the Constitution, could not justify the parties to it, in interposing, even so far as to avert the progress of the evil, and thereby to preserve the Constitution itself, as well as to provide for the safety of the parties to it, there would be an end of all relief from usurped power, and a direct subversion of the rights specified or recognized under all the State Constitutions, as well as a plain denial of the fundamental principle on which our independence itself was declared."
Certainly those who made the Government have a right not only to check and control it, but even to unmake it, whenever all of them concur in that wish.
Moreover, it is the particular object of the written Constitutions to define and limit the powers of the Government; to guard against usurpations; to protect the weak against the strong; to guard the rights of the minority against the encroachments of the majority.
The States, when they formed the Compact, brought to that work, their entire sovereignty, and all their rights. If they did not then surrender that sovereignty and those rights altogether, they must have designed to reserve to themselves, the task of protecting them.

Tags: government Constitution nullification limited government

The Examiner, and Journal of Political Economy/Volume 2/Number 6/An Exposition of the Virginia Resolutions of 1798

Tue Nov 27 22:17:14 +0000 2012

The third of six essays written by Abel P. Upshur under this title and published in this work.

Annotations:

I am now to prove to you, sir, that Nullification is the only mode in which the usurpations of the Federal Government may be resisted by the States, in accordance with the principles of our resolutions of 1798.
1. The resolutions assert that there is some mode within the Constitution by which the usurpations of the Federal Government may be resisted by the States. Now, it is true that nullification is denied to be a constitutional remedy, but the nullifiers assert that it is constitutional;
2. The remedy must be such as to "arrest the progress of the evil." — Now, be pleased to bear in mind, that nullification does not proceed upon any supposed right of the State to repeal a constitutional law, but upon the right of a State to declare that an unconstitutional law really is so, and to refuse obedience to it for that reason.
A State which refuses to submit to such a pretended law, is strictly within the Union — because she is in strict obedience to the Constitution; and it is strange to say that she "refuses to submit to the burthens" imposed by any law which is not law at all. Here, then, you have a picture of Nullification. It secures to the State the right to remain in the Union, and to enjoy all the advantages which the Constitution and laws can afford — submitting, at the same time, to all which that Constitution and laws rightfully enjoin; while it "arrests the progress" of usurped power, by destroying the obligation of every pretended law which the Constitution does not authorise, and which, therefore, is not law.
f it was the meaning and object of the resolutions of 1798, that the States had the right, and were in duty bound, to resist the usurpations of the Federal Government, by some means, which at the same time that it arrested the evil, should preserve the Union unbroken, I must be permitted to think that Nullification, if it does not attain these objects completely, comes much nearer to it than any other proceeding which has yet been proposed.

Tags: government Constitution nullification limited government

The Examiner, and Journal of Political Economy/Volume 2/Number 5/An Exposition of the Virginia Resolutions of 1798

Tue Nov 27 20:44:04 +0000 2012

The second of six essays written by Abel P. Upshur under this title and published in this work.

Annotations:

In these resolutions, the following principles are distinctly affirmed:

1. That the Constitution of the United States is a Compact between the States, as such.

2. That the Government established by that Compact, possesses no power whatever, except what "the plain sense and intention" of that Compact gives to it.

3. That every act done by that Government, not plainly within the limits of its powers, is void.

4. That each State has a right to say whether an act done by that Government, is plainly within the limits of its powers or not.

5. That the States are not bound to submit to, but may resist, any act of that Government, which it shall so decide to be beyond the limits of its powers.
Permit me to examine all the modes of resistance which occur to my own mind, and to see which of them is within the principles thus asserted.

1. Petition, remonstrance, protest. — It cannot, I think, be seriously asserted, that these are any means of resistance at all. It is such a resistance as your slave may make, when you chastise him for an imputed fault. If all right of farther resistance be disclaimed, this is an implied admission that the party to whom the appeal is addressed, may, if he chooses, persevere in the wrong. In point of fact, however, remonstrance and protest are founded in the idea that there is such right of farther resistance. Petition is a simple appeal for mercy or forbearance; protest and remonstrance, affirm a right, and threaten the enforcement of it. But they do not in themselves enforce it, and therefore are not resistance.

2. An appeal to arms. — This is utterly against all notions of constitutional remedy. Our Government is founded in free choice, and is supported by public opinion alone. A resort to arms, therefore, would at once change the whole genius of the Constitution. A case might certainly arise, in which a State might rightfully resort to arms for the purpose of putting down or resisting the usurpations of the Federal Government. Suppose, for instance, that the President should send a regiment of his standing army, to turn our Legislature out of doors, and pull down the capitol, I presume that Governor Floyd would be clearly right in calling upon the militia to put every soldier of them to the sword, if the civil authority should prove unable to "arrest the progress of the evil." At all events, the Legislature might authorize him to do so. This, however, is an extreme case, and such as could not have been anticipated; for the Government could not exist a day, with an administration capable of such an outrage. An actual appeal to arms, therefore, is not to be thought of, as among the proposed modes of resistance.

3. A repeal of the unconstitutional law by Congress. This, I perceive, is one of the President's modes, but unfortunately, he is not very apt to discern the principles which his measures involve. This would, indeed, be a complete remedy for the evil, and an ample redress of the wrong. — You know, however, sir, that although you may "call spirits from the vasty deep," it is not certain that they will "come when you do call them." It is not likely that the usurper will either acknowledge his usurpation, or lay down his usurped power. You must remember, too, that the usurper in the present case, is a majority of the people, usurping upon the rights of the minority, and the history of the tariff laws, ought to convince you how unapt such usurpers are to give way. This remedy, therefore, would be of little value in practice. Besides, it is in principle, a simple appeal to the wrong doer, and is therefore, no more a mode of resistance, than the right of petition. Every thing is left at last, to the will and discretion of the usurping power.

4. An amendment of the Constitution. I certainly should not have mentioned this as a means of resistance, if it had not been mentioned by the President, as one of the modes in which the aggrieved States, or people, might seek redress. No man, but one of his peculiar intellect, would ever think of an amendment of the Constitution, as a means of resisting a breach of that instrument. It is not the object to amend the Constitution, but to preserve it, unimpaired as it is. I hope that the President's future labours, in the study of the Constitution, may show him this distinction.

5. Secession, or a withdrawal from the Union by the aggrieved State. This, sir, is your favourite mode, and, as far as I can perceive, your only mode, of resisting the usurpations of the Federal Government. The President, however, in the plenitude of his merciful consideration of State Rights, does not even allow them this humble refuge from oppression. Let us now see how you will carry out this mode of resistance, consistently with the resolutions of 1798.
as sovereign and independent States, they are entitled to all the authorities, rights and liberties, which at any time, belonged to them as such, except such part thereof, as they plainly surrendered when they ratified the Constitution. These they may, it is true, enjoy in a state of separation. But they are also entitled to all the authorities, rights and liberties, which the other States guarantied to them by the terms of the Union.
I have thus examined every mode of "arresting the progress of the evil, and maintaining within the respective limits of the States, the authorities, rights and liberties which appertain to them," which occur to my mind, except nullification. It appears, I think, clearly enough, that none of these will answer the purpose. If there by any other mode, you will confer a great benefit upon the country, by pointing it out.

Tags: government Constitution nullification limited government

The Examiner, and Journal of Political Economy/Volume 2/Number 4/An Exposition of the Virginia Resolutions of 1798

Tue Nov 27 20:09:30 +0000 2012

The first of six essays written by Abel P. Upshur under this title and published in this work.

Annotations:

1. Is there, or is there not, any principle in the Constitution of the United States, by which the States may resist the usurpations of the Federal Government; or are such usurpations to be resisted only by revolution?
2. If there be no principle, is not the Federal Government as unlimited in its powers as any other Government as unlimited in its powers as any other Government whatever be its form, whose encroachments upon the rights of the citizen can be repelled only by rebellion, or other application of physical force?
3. Is not the passing a law by Congress which the Constitution does not authorise, a usurpation on the part of that body? And is not every such unconstitutional law absolutely void, as passed by a delegated authority, beyond the limits of that authority?
4. Are the States bound to submit to laws which are unconstitutional, and therefore void?
5. If the States are not so bound to submit, is not the particular State which refuses to submit, right in so doing?
6. If the recusant State be right in her refusal to submit, are not the other States wrong in compelling her to submit? Is it not oppression of the worst sort, to coerce obedience to usurped power?
7. Is there any common umpire established by the Constitution; to whom may be referred questions touching a breach thereof?
8. If there be no such common umpire, does it not result from the necessity of the case, that each State must judge thereof for itself?
9. If a State, in the actual exercise of this right, should decide that any given act of Congress is a palpable and dangerous violation of the Constitution, is there any right of appeal from the decision?
10. If there be, does the appeal lie to any other authority than the other parties to the Constitution?
11. Who are these "other parties?" The States, or the people?
12. Is not the decision of every inferior tribunal of competent jurisdiction, obligatory and conclusive, until it is reversed? And if so, is not the decision of a State upon a constitutional question on which it has a right to decide, conclusive as to such State, until it is reversed by the other States, acting as such?
13. If it be thus conclusive, has the State a right to act upon its decision or not?
14. If it has no such right of action, is its right of judgment any thing more than a mere liberty of speech and of opinion, and, therefore, no available right at all?
15. If it has such right of action, is it to act by submitting to the usurped power, or by opposing it?
16. Are petition, remonstrance and protest, any thing more than appeals to the oppressor, and therefore in no sense, to be called opposition to him? Or if it be opposition, and these petitions, remonstrances and appeals, should all be disregarded, is the matter to rest there?
17. If not, and farther resistance is to be made, ought not that resistance to be made in such form as to redress the wrong?
18. If so, can the wrong be redressed by the injured State going out of the Union? Does not this, on the contrary, increase the wrong as to her, by compelling her to relinquish all the advantages of the Union, to which she is fairly entitled, and at the same time, encourage the aggressors to persevere in the wrong, by withdrawing all opposition to them? Is not the "redress," in this mode of seeking it, merely an additional wrong done to the injured party?
19. If so, what do you propose to substitute for it?
I confess that it seems to me exceedingly dear, that our Constitution is most worthless and tyrannical, if the usurpations of those who administer it, cannot be resisted by any means short of revolution. I have always considered the reserved powers of the States, as the only real check upon the powers of the Federal Government; and I have always considered it, not only the right, but the imperious duty of the States, so to apply that check, as not to dissolve the Union. And I have never been able to discover any mode of doing this, except by the positive refusal of the States to submit to usurpations, whilst, at the same time, remaining in the Union, they force the Federal Government back within the charter of its power. — This seems to me an irrisistible inference, from the principles indicated in the preceding interrogatories. Perhaps you can show me that these principles do not lead to Nullification? I shall be happy to be undeceived; but at present, I entertain no doubt, that that doctrine is the only one upon which the States can safely repose.

Tags: government Constitution nullification limited government state rights

THE FORT HILL ADDRESS: ON THE RELATIONS OF THE STATES AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

Mon Nov 26 23:08:47 +0000 2012

Union and Liberty: The Political Philosophy of John C. Calhoun

Annotations:

The question of the relation which the States and General Government bear to each other is not one of recent origin. From the commencement of our system, it has divided public sentiment. Even in the Convention, while the Constitution was struggling into existence, there were two parties as to what this relation should be, whose different sentiments constituted no small impediment in forming that instrument. After the General Government went into operation, experience soon proved that the question had not terminated with the labors of the Convention. The great struggle that preceded the political revolution of 1801, which brought Mr. Jefferson into power, turned essentially on it; and the doctrines and arguments on both sides were embodied and ably sustained—on the one, in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, and the Report to the Virginia Legislature—and on the other, in the replies of the Legislature of Massachusetts and some of the other States. These Resolutions and this Report, with the decision of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania about the same time (particularly in the case of Cobbett, delivered by Chief Justice M’Kean, and concurred in by the whole bench), contain what I believe to be the true doctrine on this important subject. I refer to them in order to avoid the necessity of presenting my views, with the reasons in support of them, in detail.
The great and leading principle is, that the General Government emanated from the people of the several States, forming distinct political communities, and acting in their separate and sovereign capacity, and not from all of the people forming one aggregate political community; that the Constitution of the United States is, in fact, a compact, to which each State is a party, in the character already described; and that the several States, or parties, have a right to judge of its infractions; and in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of power not delegated, they have the right, in the last resort, to use the language of the Virginia Resolutions, “to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining, within their respective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to them.” This right of interposition, thus solemnly asserted by the State of Virginia, be it called what it may—State-right, veto, nullification, or by any other name—I conceive to be the fundamental principle of our system, resting on facts historically as certain as our revolution itself, and deductions as simple and demonstrative as that of any political, or moral truth whatever; and I firmly believe that on its recognition depend the stability and safety of our political institutions.
I yield, I trust, to few in my attachment to the Judiciary Department. I am fully sensible of its importance, and would maintain it, to the fullest extent, in its constitutional powers and independence; but it is impossible for me to believe, that it was ever intended by the Constitution, that it should exercise the power in question, or that it is competent to do so; and, if it were, that it would be a safe depository of the power.

Its powers are judicial, and not political; and are expressly confined by the Constitution “to all cases in law and equality arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and the treaties made, or which shall be made, under its authority;” and which I have high authority in asserting, excludes political questions, and comprehends those only where there are parties amenable to the process of the court.1 Nor is its incompetency less clear than its want of constitutional authority. There may be many, and the most dangerous infractions on the part of Congress, of which, it is conceded by all, the court, as a judicial tribunal, cannot, from its nature, take cognizance. The Tariff itself is a strong case in point; and the reason applies equally to all others where Congress perverts a power from an object intended, to one not intended, the most insidious and dangerous of all infractions; and which may be extended to all of its powers, more especially to the taxing and appropriating. But, supposing it competent to take cognizance of all infractions of every description, the insuperable objection still remains, that it would not be a safe tribunal to exercise the power in question.
In examining this point, we ought not to forget that the Government, through all its departments, judicial as well as others, is administered by delegated and responsible agents; and that the power which really controls, ultimately, all the movements is not in the agents, but those who elect or appoint them.
The error is in the assumption that the General Government is a party to the constitutional compact. The States, as has been shown, formed the compact, acting as Sovereign and independent communities. The General Government is but its creature; and though, in reality, a government, with all the rights and authority which belong to any other government, within the orbit of its powers, it is, nevertheless, a government emanating from a compact between sovereigns, and partaking, in its nature and object, of the character of a joint commission, appointed to superintend and administer the interests in which all are jointly concerned; but having, beyond its proper sphere, no more power than if it did not exist.
How the States are to exercise this high power of interposition, which constitutes so essential a portion of their reserved rights that it cannot be delegated without an entire surrender of their sovereignty, and converting our system from a federal into a consolidated Government, is a question that the States only are competent to determine.

Tags: Constitution limited government government nullification

State Documents on Federal Relations/21

Mon Nov 26 21:42:11 +0000 2012

At a special session of the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, held at Hartford, on the twenty-third day of February, A. D. 1809.

Annotations:

After solemn deliberation and advisement thereon, the General Assembly are decided in the opinion, and do Resolve, that the acts aforesaid are a permanent system of measures, abandoning undeniable rights; interdicting the exercise of constitutional privileges, and unprecedented in the annals of nations; and do contain provisions for exercising arbitrary powers, grievous to the good people of this State, dangerous to their common liberties, incompatible with the constitution of the United States, and encroaching upon the immunities of this State.
That to preserve the Union, and support the constitution of the United States, it becomes the duty of the Legislatures of the States, in such a crisis of affairs, vigilantly to watch over, and vigorously to maintain, the powers not delegated to the United States, but reserved to the States respectively, or to the people; and that a due regard to this duty, will not permit this Assembly to assist, or concur in giving effect to the aforesaid unconstitutional act, passed, to enforce the Embargo.

Tags: Constitution government limited government nullification

State Documents on Federal Relations/20

Sun Nov 25 22:57:59 +0000 2012

Speech of Governor Jonathan Trumbull at the Opening of the Special Session of the Legislature, February 23, 1809.

Annotations:

Indeed, it would be useful for the general good, if the State Legislatures were often to cast a watchful eye towards the general government, with a view, candidly to consider, and judiciously discern, whether the powers delegated to the United States are not exceeded, or are so exercised as not to interfere with or counteract those which are reserved by the people for their own management.
Whenever our national legislature is led to overleap the prescribed bounds of their constitutional powers, on the State Legislatures, in great emergencies, devolves the arduous task—it is their right—it becomes their duty, to interpose their protecting shield between the right and liberty of the people, and the assumed power of the General Government.

Tags: government Constitution limited government nullification

James Madison, Report on the Virginia Resolutions (Jan. 1800)

Sun Nov 25 21:43:13 +0000 2012

Report of the Committee to whom were referred the Communications of various State, relative to the Resolutions of the last General Assembly of this State, concerning the Alien and Sedition Laws.

Annotations:

in all the contemporary discussions and comments which the Constitution underwent, it was constantly justified and recommended on the ground that the powers not given to the government were withheld from it; and that, if any doubt could have existed on this subject, under the original text of the Constitution, it is removed, as far as words could remove it, by the 12th amendment, now a part of the Constitution, which expressly declares, "that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
the Constitution was submitted to the "states;" in that sense the "states" ratified it; and in that sense of the term "states," they are consequently parties to the compact from which the powers of the federal government result.
the General Assembly views the powers of the federal government "as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact," and "as no further valid than they are authorized by the grants therein enumerated."
The Constitution of the United States was formed by the sanction of the states, given by each in its sovereign capacity. It adds to the stability and dignity, as well as to the authority, of the Constitution, that it rests on this legitimate and solid foundation. The states, then, being the parties to the constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity that there can be no tribunal, above their authority, to decide, in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated; and consequently, that, as the parties to it, they must themselves decide, in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition.
It does not follow, however, because the states, as sovereign parties to their constitutional compact, must ultimately decide whether it has been violated, that such a decision ought to be interposed either in a hasty manner or on doubtful and inferior occasions.

Tags: government Constitution limited government nullification

Kentucky Resolutions of 1799

Sun Nov 25 19:32:14 +0000 2012

The Kentucky Resolutions of 1799 to show the continued support by the Kentucky legislature of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, resolutions opposing as unconstitutional the Alien and Sedition Acts. This edition of the resolutions is from Jonathan Elliot's Debates.

Annotations:

if those who administer the general government be permitted to transgress the limits fixed by that compact, by a total disregard to the special delegations of power therein contained, an annihilation of the state governments, and the creation, upon their ruins, of a general consolidated government, will be the inevitable consequence: That the principle and construction, contended for by sundry of the state legislatures, that the general government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism—since the discretion of those who administer the government, and not the Constitution, would be the measure of their powers: That the several states who formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and, That a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under color of that instrument, is the rightful remedy:

Tags: government Constitution limited government nullification